A 3D printed robot has arrived that can crack a combination lock in as little as 30 seconds.

A well-known California hacker Samy Kamkar who is expert in cracking locks has built a 3D-printed machine, calling his gadget the "C-C-C-Combo Breaker," that can crack Master Lock combination padlocks – used on hundreds of thousands of school lockers – in less than 30 seconds.

In April, Samy Kamkar, a hacker and engineer and the inventor of the handmade device disclosed the technique of cracking Master locks by taking care of the hitches in the dial’s spin, which indicate at the actual combination and restrict it to eight options. The things that your hands can do, a machine can often do it more quicker. Hence, Kamkar made a lock-cracking machine from off-the-shelf parts that converts the whole process into an automatic operation.

One part tightly grasps the dial and spins to the numbers as it goes through the procedure of examining the resistance capacity that shows the combo. In the meantime, a little lever pulls on the shackle at the right moments to check and see if the lock opens after each try. You can see an comprehensive and thorough explanation of the device in Kamkar’s video below, but if you do not know the dissimilarity between DC and AC, or what a stepper motor is, it may be a bit too technical to enjoy.

So to make it simple for everyone – On Thursday, the hacker showed a wonderful DIY on how anyone can build an electronic device, Combo Breaker, which applies the technique automatically and can achieve the same result in about 30 seconds.
"The machine pretty much brute forces the lock for you," says Kamkar. "You attach it, leave it, and it does its thing."

Kamkar posted a step-by-step video on how to assemble the $100 worth of parts to create your own Combo Breaker.

The necessary hardware includes a 3D printer to create the frame, the stepper driver and motor, Arduino Nano microprocessor, a 500mAh 3S battery, voltage regulators, an analog feedback servo and a breadboard and wires. All components are readily available online.

The hacker has also released the plans, 3D models, and code of Combo Breaker online for free as open source.

Kamkar is no novice to such devices, in January, Kamkar had developed a $10 USB wall charger which could read data from any wireless keyboard manufactured by Microsoft. He has named the device as KeySweeper and had also released a do it yourself tutorial on GitHub.
Visit his website: http://samy.pl/combobreaker/